Few people have been less excited by Fiat's return to the United States than me. The 500 is pretty much everything I don't like or seek out in a car: small, cute, low-powered and weird. When Alfa Romeo comes back in 2013—that's an Italian brand I can get on board with. A 4C? Yes, please.

So when I saw that I had been assigned the keys to our long-term 500 C Pop cabrio for a weekend in the dead of winter in Michigan, I wasn't exactly thrilled. So much so that I passed on an opportunity to hit happy hour on the way home and simply beat a path away from One Autoweek Tower in downtown Detroit to the far-flung suburbs. Snow was coming, and when the flurries began falling in the darkness as I neared the Migliore compound, I felt a bit victorious. I was home safely ahead of the storm.

But. A light came on while I was still parked at work—low tire pressure. Crud. This needed to be rectified once I got home so as to avoid a weekend of certain snow and iffy tires. The next morning I filled it up, and the tire wasn't really that low in the first place. With the sun shining brightly, and the temperature now reasonably warm (sunny and 26 degrees Fahrenheit feels warm in the North in winter), I decided to tool around the neighborhood.

What happened next surprised me. I really enjoyed the 500. It was a blast using the joystick five-speed manual, and even with these tiny tires, it was reasonably sure-footed. A Jeep Wrangler would have been better for the mushy streets, but the 500 felt like slipping around in a little go-kart, sort of like a four-cylinder sled. I even popped the roof, letting in shocks of shiny white snow that had accumulated on the top of the car. It felt good. Cool but not cold, and invigorating.

The 500 handled well as I put it through its paces in the Labrador country that is Detroit's western suburbs, and dashing through the open roads was a riot. Driving for the sake of driving is always fun, especially when it's below freezing and your car has 101 hp.

I still think that the 500 is a novelty. And small for the sake of small isn't what most Americans want. But a weekend in the 500 was a hell of a lot of fun. It's smart to keep an open mind. You never know when something good will sneak up on you. Bring on the Abarth.